


people like you, people like me

by Anonymous



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Goro-centric, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22506079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: I know about the Metaverse and what you are,he sometimes thinks about dumping the hard truth onto Kurusu, just to see that notorious poker face off guard at least once.You better stop this hero act before you ruin us both.As if he's not the one driving them off the road.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Takamaki Ann, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 8
Kudos: 80
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> goodmorning goroboys  
> \- spoilers for the goro-centric events of p5r, no sumi spoilers (mostly because i don't trust myself to write to deeply into it without the official translations)  
> \- *this is goro-centric* this is not (romantic) shuake focused  
> \- CW for each chapter's beginning notes  
> \- i wrote this all in like 3 weeks at 3am then edited at 3am im sorry if some parts for nonsensical my friends who usually beta for me hate p5 and god i wish that were me too  
> \- please take the unreliable narrator tag to heart im fucking begging here man
> 
> **CW: Implied Disordered Eating, Metaphorical Gore, Emotional Abuse, Shido, Self Delusion, and Death.**

He’s sitting in a cafe that could easily be forgotten in Shibuya’s mass, dressed in iron pressed clothes. There’s some sugary dessert in front of him and a woman sitting right across from him. A recorder is laid on the pink-white table.

It’s supposed to be another interview set up by Shido, to boost his popularity and reputation. It’s not his first time having one, not even his first interview this _week_. Everyone wants to know more about the 16-year-old ace detective it seems. Shido says so, with a grin that makes Goro feel on edge.

(It also feeds some twisted desire inside him; one that encases him in a chokehold, one that leaves him crawling right back to Shido. But it doesn’t matter. Goro has other matters to attend to, other than his own praise-starved self.)

The woman has overgrown nails with a fresh coat of red nail polish; her black hair is curled over her shoulder. The bones and veins in her hands stand out. She begins to tap against the table and Goro swears he can smell the polish underneath the strong presence of dessert. “So I heard you were a fan of sweets.”

He isn’t— the sugar stays and coats his mouth in a way that makes Goro wish he could just wash the taste out. Most foods here look like they’re heartburn-worthy and it churns his stomach. But Goro Akechi, the youngest detective in Tokyo’s police force, is nothing less than a fanatic for them. “I haven’t had the time to taste any of the new plates recently, with the influx of shutdowns and all.”

Goro doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to talking about the breakdowns as if it wasn’t his doing. Treating himself as if a stranger or an unworldly force. He’s going to look in the mirror and not recognize his own face at this rate.

She laughs, but it’s forced and Goro remembers he needs to uphold his charismatic appearance a bit stronger. “Sorry to hear about that, but they do say crime never sleeps.” Cue another strained laugh. ”How about trying the newest treat that’s making headlines.”

This used to always annoy him in the beginning— this conversation divergence, the off-topic small talk that’ll be crowned the main piece in the interview. _Why_ even bother with him or, in Shido’s matter, frame himself as this genius detective if they never cared about his job in the first place.

His main source of fame is nothing and he’s just a boy with a pretty face and high click counts to them. At one point you just have to realize that you could easily gain this fame through other means of specialties. It makes his work (ha, if he can ever call it that) seem useless in the end if they’re only here to paint his picture and set up a false profile. A fake plastic version of him— the young charismatic Goro Akechi that every adult and teenage girl loves.

It doesn’t bother him anymore, because the payoff is more than enough for him. More than one person has come up to him, drowning him in praises. It’s not that he particularly cares for them but it’s the intent behind it all, the context, the _effect_.

He doesn’t need to worry about his praised-starved self, you see because he’ll die off any day now. That’s just how all of this works.

An hour after they’re done and gone, Goro finds himself not being able to recount the interview at all. The interviewer herself has become nothing more than a faceless being with a recorder attached to her person like a lifeline. Eight hours later, it’s dinnertime and Goro can still feel the sugar heavily coating his mouth.

He doesn’t feel hungry, not even the next day when his head spins when he stands. If anything, the emptiness inside him is some sort of sick comfort. Every denial of filling is his choice to make. His true ugly self showing because the Metaverse is too filled with rotten beings to handle one more, one that’s destroying it from the inside out. He’ll live in the worst parts of himself. He'll ruin the edges of the perfect child before it reroots back into its seeded perfection.

He’s eating the next trending dish a day later.

##### PART ONE

* * *

He originally starts drinking coffee not because he enjoys the taste but rather because hearing newscasters, Sae, and Shido talk is _tiring_. Standing and waiting for the next trend to be plated in front of him is tiring. He sits through the appointments Shido sets up for him with too many faces talking and Goro sees them nothing other than blurs now.

Featureless nobodies passing by him, asking him questions, demanding answers, expecting things from him. He can’t walk around without being noticed or talked about. Surprisingly, assignments in the Metaverse is the only thing that keeps him _alive,_ as it once made him felt like he was going to shrivel up and die under its weight and responsibilities.

Coffee makes his heartbeat too fast and makes his fingertips too aware of the textures under them but it keeps him moving and awake. A boost for his brain when it begins to move too slow to keep up with the deadlines awaiting him at the end of the week. It gives him the energy to keep smiling passively while Shido and the media do what they want with him.

Sae mentions Leblanc during one of her rants while they eat at a cheap sushi bar. She’s acting more aggressive and reckless lately, her work becoming more and more messy. Goro sees the beginning of her crash and he waits patiently to see the prime of her wreck to salvage anything useful.

(Sometimes, Goro wonders when everything began to work mechanical to him. When did he start swapping human emotion for this passive survival. When did that stop bothering him, instead becoming something he seeks out to when everything is too loud. It’s obvious his rebellion is still here and alive, as Loki thrives in the Metaverse with every shutdown, but now it’s buried beneath his conscious, building up and up and—)

He finds Akira Kurusu in Cafe Leblanc after Kurusu explains his living situation weeks before, wearing a green apron and working behind the bar with little company and a cat sitting in one of the stools.

Fate is something he reserves to people who he’s certain will have a definite beginning and end with him. Shido, for one, is fated to look down at him until the day Goro takes a wrecking ball to the pedestal he stands upon. Sae was there to guide him, there to fail him when he had already set up his destiny alone, and then there to fail herself to her own desires.

Kurusu is fated to meet him time and time again— hiding in the corners of Tokyo in plain sight. To rival him and stand out against the faceless masses. He makes Goro unable to live just passively around him, always trying to prove himself more worthy than him and hating himself for the fact that he needs to do that. And when he spots Kurusu in the corner of his eye, meeting with each suspect of the Phantom Thieves’ movement and disappearing at times while the thieves thrive, he knows it’s _fate_.

It’s like a book he read the ending of first before finishing; he knows how they’re going to end. There’s no stopping it. They’ll keep moving until their tied strings are cut apart once again. One always shorter than the other— fate without destiny.

Goro had always known this won’t end well; no ending ever is.

-

In a moment of surprise, Robin Hood manifests in Mementos bearing a new outfit with him. A persona that feels more like a toy for display than an actual fragment of Goro. That should’ve been what made him perfect.

Goro remembers once being a boy and looking through the window shop, staring the plastic ray guns like it'll magically appear in his arms and he's ready in suit to save the day. He imagined being the hero when his mother had always come home so beaten down. To stop the men that walked around his home like they owned it, left his mother with her makeup smeared, her skin bruised and her so _tired_.

A hero was nothing better than a victim without his weapon and his allies. His mother slept more than anything by the time he was eight years old. He had always waited for a _better_ day to ask, to play hero while she was wide awake to see it.

He kept waiting.

-

Kurusu acts nonchalant as if Goro doesn't know what cheap foundation over bruises looks like. Even as the jazz club’s light distorts Kurusu’s face into harsh shadows clashing against warm tones and Kurusu’s big-framed glasses cover most of his face, Goro can still pick up a powdered eyed anywhere.

“You can always confide in me,” Goro offers because he’s _polite_. After all, it makes the newscasters laugh like they can’t recognize kindness in teenagers anymore. Not that he’s considered to be a teenager anymore— he’s been eighteen years old for far too long already, Goro feels.

Kurusu shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck and rolling it out of habit. “It’s not much to worry about, especially for a detective.”

“Oh really?” Goro takes a sip from his drink, watching Kurusu's way of avoidance. "Please do not let my status create a barrier; if you need help, I'll be happy to assist."

He thinks about tacking on ' _Unless you need to hide a body, then I'll need to arrest you_ ,' but doesn’t because the irony is too much to bear for his tongue.

Kurusu shifts in his chair, leaning back and kicking his foot up to rest at his jeans-covered knee. "No, no, it isn't that it's just… complicated."

Kurusu hasn't begun to understand what the word _complicated_ means. Kurusu may have experienced hardships, but never true complications. True complications are trying to find a clear face out of a sea of blurred ones and the first one you find is the one who'll join the collateral damage of your plans. Complications is a murderer having a conversation with his victim. Complications are _having_ murderous tendencies run in your bloodline but the blood is always covering someone else’s hands.

 _I know about the Metaverse and what you are,_ he sometimes thinks about dumping the hard truth onto Kurusu and teach him what complicated truly means, just to see that notorious poker face off guard at least once. _You better stop this hero act before you ruin us both._ As if he's not the one driving them off the road.

But Goro has a thing for self-destruction. He wonders if he's self-victimizing enough to say that he's being held at gunpoint from the passenger seat. He came to Shido after all, even if murder wasn't what he had in mind. But Shido is a disgusting being in a high power position and— honestly, what else did Goro think Shido was going to do with him.

(He's always been a bit of a monster.)

"Breaking down the situation has always been a helpful method for me."

Kurusu gives a bitter laugh, "I don't even know where to begin. It's not that it's the worst thing to happen to me, it's just- different."

Now there's something Goro can relate to.

"It's not something I really should be talking about. It's between my friends when it comes down to it. Not even that, actually." Kurusu continues, "It's about them, and who they are."

“I find that it's like that for a lot of things: All boiling down to their persons and their habits. But it's easier to say it's all to situation or circumstance."

"It's easier to fix a circumstance than it is to fix a person." Kurusu clarifies for Goro. "No one wants to admit the worst parts of themselves."

Of course Kurusu would say that— the Metaverse clings to them both, drawing them right back in. They know the worst of humanity, they know their enemies. The Metaverse is based all on cognition and true selves. Goro is Goro and Kurusu will always be Kurusu. They do what they do; Goro had set the stage and Kurusu will act his part. Like a phantom thief, he'll move right through Goro and onto his bigger plans, saving people like it's possible to save all of _humanity_. And like a true phantom, he'll know his enemies a little too late when he's six feet deep and out of body, haunting Goro forever.

-

Okumura dies in a flood of blue and black, becoming the ink that writes more than one ending. In November, Goro gives the thieves an ultimatum rigged in ways that'll make Sae Niijima proud— be arrested and unfairly trialed or help him and disband.

-

Goro was fifteen years old when he completed his first assignment.

It wasn't an assignment technically— Shido was merely a politician with a semi-higher status than the common person and barely knew who Goro was. No, he started gaining power after he hired Goro and letting him loose in the Metaverse. Kind of like those illegal dog fighting rings that Goro has the rare chance to cover at his not-job.

Before that, Goro was a middle schooler facing the possibility of the government dropping him out onto the streets and Shido was some nobody politician with one too many controversies surrounding him.

A nobody politician is very easy to get into contact with, Goro finds out quickly. He goes up to Shido one day in autumn and says "I have a proposition for you."

Shido kicked him out quickly, thinking he was some crazed orphan looking for shady work to make it by (which, _fair_ ). But before he was escorted away, he stuck this in Shido's mind: Watch your rivals. Watch them and then come crawling back to _me_.

Not even a full week later both of his rivals randomly pull out of the race. There's a string of reasons and several recorded controversies circling them. Their reputations tarnished. Their status in society lost in such a short amount of time.

Shido doesn't call it _crawling_ _back_ ; he calls it a job only Goro can meet the requirements of. He’ll supply Goro with schooling, housing, everything that a poor throwaway could dream. That is if Goro continues supporting Shido with his, _atypic_ , connections. Goro will forever hate the way he liked hearing that acknowledgment from Shido, hearing how _special_ he was to him.

It started out simple enough— start scandals, cause a public breakdown, further Shido's message, _their_ message.

Simple until one day, Shido placed Isshiki's research on the desk, leaned on it as he leaned forward, and said: _"I want to unlock your true potential."_

True potential; power; loyalty; _You’re a supporter of my cause, right Akechi? You’ll do anything for me._

Murder was always going to be in Goro's future. There's no other way for orphans like him— unadoptable because they saw the missing father in his record as said _there's always a chance, there's always a chance._ His mother's family couldn't handle the embarrassment of someone else taking better care of Goro than their own bloodline, so they didn't even let the government _try_.

Goro knew he was never going to go anywhere; not enough support to go into high school, not enough connections to get jobs, not enough family to be passed around to. Murder isn't an uncommon job for throwaways. They have nothing to lose.

Goro didn't know he killed Wakaba Isshiki at first. Shido had just ordered him to try something new in the Metaverse: Kill the shadow. Shido likes to keep him in the dark about things like that— those needless details, the results of Goro's meddling. By the time Goro found out, Shido was ordering another mental shutdown and he had already killed a person.

The resignation was that simple. He had already killed a person. He couldn't get any worse; there's no saving him from the crimes he's committed. He was already feeling Shido's eyes follow him on every television screen.

Goro’s fifteen-year-old self was built upon dreams and rage. He was angry, fighting against a system that didn’t care for him or others, fighting against a losing battle that was decided when he came home motherless. Goro knew they thought he was meant for ruin like all the others.

That anger and thirst to prove everyone wrong built into pain, one that spread from his heart to his head. Blinded him until it formed into something he could _grasp_. In the chaos of resentment and hunger, Loki appeared with power and _more_.

But even with all that newfound power, Goro was still perceived as a child, a worthless nobody. Shido was a political nobody, but still a _politician_ no less. He still has power over Goro and there’s not much he could do for revenge that’ll give him the _satisfaction_ he deserves.

It wasn’t until Loki that he started to _think_ something beyond than just ruining Shido’s life. In the metaverse, Goro isn’t someone stuck beneath society’s shoe. He doesn’t have to adhere to someone else’s logic or justice. He doesn’t want to kill Shido; it won’t fulfill his craving for justice. He could become someone irreplaceable to Shido. He could _rule_ over Shido, make his life a living hell. The day he struck down Shido's competitors’ shadows and watched them cower and admit to their misdeeds, he thought that _this_ will be his true justice.

 _Their message_ , what a joke.

-

Kurusu always disregarded his status like it was an afterthought if nothing at all. But there are times where he’ll throw it around like a taunt or a barrier. It grates Goro’s nerves, like when the textures weren’t _right_ under his fingertips.

Kurusu makes Goro feel like he’s drowning and can’t help but to swallow the next gulp of water. He’s lying on the river bottom, cutting his skin open on the grated rocks and letting all his blood-born secrets spill out— hiding his bloody fingerprints in billiard games played on false hands and facades that he’s drilled into himself for so long he lost where his true self is.

He hates Kurusu’s way of acting like he’s unworldly, like nothing can ever touch him. He dances around Goro, balancing on a few words and fewer promises. He learns fast and Goro is spending too much time trying to stay ahead.

He hates how Kurusu can play him without trouble. But he hates how Kurusu is never vicious _more_.

Kurusu talks and acts like he’s something bigger than himself, than Goro, but never once made the gesture of true defiance. He never expected anything from Goro other than Goro himself— someone to debate and theorize with because it was _fun_. Kurusu stood out against the faceless people because he didn't _try_ to force a friendship or to meld Goro into his standards. He didn't change himself into someone more compatible, always challenged Goro in ways no one dares to.

He let Goro _be_. And Goro doesn’t know what to do with that.

(Because this is how it works: Goro finds a perfect face pleasant enough for everyone. Someone always wants a certain thing from him. Kurusu makes him feel like he’s losing something of himself, always changing that face to see if it’ll fit around him but never do.

Kurusu never wanted _anything_. Not even something that would've been beneficial towards the Phantom Thieves months ago, like an insider’s view.

Then something in Goro figures itself out— there’s no need for a princely facade. Kurusu is a one-way mirror and Goro knows there’s more than one secret hiding in the depth of him.

He can wipe all that cheap makeup clear off of him, see every bruise on him. Press into each of them till they become something worse. He can claw his nails into his body, fight through the rib cage and organs. He can tear Kurusu limb from limb, separating skin from flesh from bone, and separate muscle from fat. He can pick through his brain, pick through his thoughts, learn the rudiments of his anatomy, and still come up with nothing. Kurusu will always be hiding some part of himself, shielding his heart and secrets like some sort of western pirate and bury it worlds deep into the Earth.

He’s a one-way mirror in the making, to see Goro in his full and have only Goro see what he can recognize. He doesn’t hunt for Goro’s self— he expects, he waits.

But here’s the thing: Goro lost himself to this reality long ago. There’s no time for him to shine in the spotlight, only ever burning at the edges. He’s always searching for his true self but never finding it.

He loses himself to the carved smiles and bright lights in hot studios. He disappears into the corners of his consciousness while in Shido’s lobby waiting for the newest addition to his list of crimes. Goro takes what used to be him and sculpts a perfect boy out of a throwaway child.

Here’s another thing: He always finds it at the end of the day though; in the pits of the masses' cognition, when he remembers just how much control he has over Japan.

Kurusu is going to have to try harder than that.)

-

Goro remembers once being left out of the Diet Building while waiting for Shido because this is how Shido likes to remind him of his place. He stood out in the rain because he forgot his umbrella and had to wait it out under a cover shivering. And once the downpour eased the entire place was colored in blue. It was like a filter was placed over his eyes or the entire country, continent, was dunked in paint; the world worked in monochrome. He remembers the unbalance of his feet, his own world tilted on its axis and his brain disconnecting his reality and this reality. The images of dry, wet, and monochrome cities overlay each other— putting the consistency of the place and the changes of details, titles, into a full view. His ribcage had curled into himself, constricting his lungs and suddenly Goro knows where his mind and his body diverges. His body will always be someone else’s— a son, a bastard, a hitman, a celebrity. The same mind will always remain— hungry and caving in into himself because he stretched himself too far and can't undo the marks he made.

 _It's easier to fix a circumstance than it is to fix a person_. Goro wonders how Akira would see him— a circumstance of curses or genes, or a person with too many misdeeds to ever right his wrongs. He’s been taught by his younger peers to always take what you want before what you need; Goro wants revenge and he needs justice, he gets both this way, the _only_ way. _No one wants to admit the worst parts of themselves._ Goro knows he could've been worse, could've been apathetic and cruel, could've completely ignored the casualties of his revenge. Could've worked _without_ the motive of Shido's downfall. But it doesn't matter because he keeps _doing it_. Working for Shido, working for his blood-stained revenge, surviving through bad coping methods and calls it _living in the worst parts of himself_ like it'll undo his sins, like it was the worst of him to begin with.

Admitting to the worst of himself— Goro knows he’s irredeemable and yet there's always going to be that selfish part of him that he'll never fully claim: He'll always be waiting for something better, to be the savior he never got to act out.

-

It's still November and Joker’s sings through the taps of his feet and fingers. He shows off his proficiency by spinning and twirling miscellaneous items by the tips of his fingers and does unnecessary flips for the sake of style. Outside the Metaverse, Akira grins with Joker's colors highlighting through the quirk of his mouth, the lids of his eyes when he squints as he manipulates another ball into the hole, the way he moves his body.

 _There you go again_ , Goro thinks, _acting like you’re bigger than yourself._

Through the ways he studies the other thieves' interactions with Akira, the depth of their trust in their leader, Goro knows Akira likes to solve problems. He loves to fix the fixer-uppers. Akira is always lending an ear and cutting a piece of himself to fill in other’s missing parts.

Goro doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want Akira’s bullshit half selves. He won’t become another victim crawling to Akira for help. They’re meant to challenge each other, to reflect each other. He doesn’t want to give Akira himself to fix; he wants to give Akira something more simple yet complex.

So he gives Akira this problem: The problems is a simple a + b = c equation in a word problem. Talking in metaphors, so thinly veiled that Akira will sense the depth of the punji pit ahead of him, there's a bigger force than just the Black Mask— there's the stick, the ball, and the collisions.

He'll admit to this one selfish desire: Goro doesn't want to kill Akira Kurusu.

##### A QUICK INTERMISSION

* * *

Sae Niijima's casino is filled with bright lights and loud chattering. Adults mulling around, dressed with enough gold jewelry that they blend right into the walls. The walls reek of the familiar smell of Shido; booze, expensive perfume, clean pressed suits. Crimes go unsolved and unnoticed. The paperwork is aflame and powering the slot machines. Fair is a word that hasn’t been discovered yet, existing in the dark and never seen.

Even though he was outlined with orders and plans, Goro's inner driving force in the Metaverse was always his curiosity. To see the reason behind everyone's distortion, how they came to be, and the way they crumble into themselves when they realize there's no escape from their own hunger. It fulfills a sick part of Goro to see that there’s always someone worse than him. Reassurance that he isn’t the worst that humanity could create.

Society is frail and teetering on the cliffside. There's no ethical way to survive under it— they're eating from each other's corpses and wondering why there's so much insanity around the world.

People like Sae, who were born seeing the edge of the cliff, are only trying to keep their grasp. But so many people are, it's only a matter of time before she has to drag someone else down to save herself. Before that action itself has become so common that she forgot what simple grief felt like.

Then there are people like him, who were thrown off the cliff and climbed their way back up. Won’t ever erase the fact that society threw him away— that fact’s branded into his skin.

Despite it all, the understanding of why Sae turned this way— this distortion of greed and winnings over justice —there’s still a burning betrayal. Sae was very well an adult; she had _power_ in where he didn’t. She knew that society was collapsing under its own weight. There was a way for her to help change society, wasn’t there? If a criminal living in an attic and his ragtag team of misfits could, why couldn’t she? Did she even try?

Maybe it isn’t fair to blame Sae to falling for her own desires. It's inevitable in the end, perhaps, to fail yourself. Maybe it isn’t right to salvage his victory in the ruins of her. He should feel guilty for letting her fall in the first place, driving her off the road like so many others.

In the casino Sae sees justice as, there’s a distant cry, a man sobbing over a table as everything he owns is taken away from him. Sae Niijima does nothing but let her eyes glaze over the scene.

There’s no comfort for him— only the smiling faces of the opponent and drinks spilling over in celebration.

In the depths of Mementos, he bares his gun and aims.

He hates many things about Akira. The way he acts, his cockiness, his grace, his ability to gain things that Goro's worked for _years_ without effort. He hates Akira's rebellion, Arsene's wings, Joker's wildcard. He _despises_ his composure and patience.

He despises that the world threw everything it had at him and he still came out winning. He loathes that he can never settle on his opinion of Akira; he hates him but relies on him; he doesn't want to kill Akira and yet can't bring himself to settle on a truce. This vortex of respect, reliance, and hatred is going to be Goro's tragic flaw and Akira's hamartia.

So he settles for the closest thing he can call to a ceasefire.

And since Goro can never face things upfront nor admit to himself of what he’s truly asking, he'll think it about this way: Let's say Goro is a man with sharp teeth who never sleeps at night. Let's say he'll tear Akira away from the life he knew and see that his vice will always be his dependence. Let's say he bites Akira in the neck because he can, because Akira keeps rolling his neck to the side knowing what Goro is, because Goro is _starving_ and Akira's blood tastes something sweet. Would Akira check his own teeth at every mirror to see if they've sharpened, to see if he even sees himself at all? Would he never notice the marks, the two parallelled holes on his neck? Was Goro even anything more than a myth to him?

And if Akira is left untouched and unchanged, he has two options: Buy the crosses or don't. There's only one option actually; it's an illusion for his peace of mind, to make him think he has a decision. Akira doesn't have a choice— Goro's hanging the damn crosses on Leblanc's walls already.

And he'll watch Akira leave with his promise to the abyss of Tokyo’s madness, feeling like his chest caved in from the city's density and there’s nothing to do except watch it crumble into rubble.

A part of Goro is always going to be that little boy, always wishing.

-

The hallways to the interrogation room are bare and echo with every step you take. Its silence and hollowness encourages Goro to follow, to keep following. It tells Goro to keep his head, to clear his mind, focus on the goal, the goal, the _goal Akechi._ Every step he draws nearer and nearer to the void. He knows this story— the calling, the yearning. He knows this silence and hollowness already; it’s a welcome home.

After he’s done and gone from that room, his apartment is lopsided and makes Goro struggle to find balance. It’s like he’s seasick and wading through his own illness. He is, in a way. It’s all in his head— the lopsidedness, the coffee, billiards, the glove. He’ll lay in bed in an apartment that was supposed to be his home but isn’t. If he had to guess, his home is 6 feet in the ground and still making Goro wait.

Goro has always been someone who ran after things he can never have; whether it be acceptance, a family, friends, a _true_ self and not these broken halves. He’s split between duty and self and he’s always walking the path of the former. Because if he had to make one successful run in this worthless life, it’ll be Shido.

 _Fuck Akira_ , Goro thinks as anger begins to bubble out of himself, _he made me do this._ This could be judged for assisted suicide rather than murder. Goro had told him, he fucking _warned_ him of what was to happen and Akira never listened. He should've seen the answer was to save himself and forget this fruitless chase of _justice_ and Goro. Maybe he overestimated him, maybe he was wrong about Akira all along.

Then again, Goro expected Akira to understand but Akira always caught him off guard. He’s never quite what he expects. Why should this be any different? It’s his own damn fault for getting his hopes up.

He falls into a fitful sleep, twisting and turning from visions of grey rooms and blood-covered tables. He wakes up from each and every one of them with a heavy pit in his stomach and getting too used to seeing Akira at the other end of his gun.

-

He always imagined understanding Akira was like tearing their bodies apart, pulling out all their unnatural pieces and setting them up for display. He's always the one scratching, crawling, biting his way inside because he doesn't know any other way. He was raised for violence and groomed for cruelty. But Akira never reciprocated; Goro's always the one tearing others apart and _tired_ of seeing the neat categories he set himself up as: Crow, Detective, Hitman, Throwaway, Bastard, Robin Hood, Loki, True, False.

So he tears himself apart. He scatters the files of _him_ together and lights them aflame. He opens his chest and bares his true self, his _whole_ self, and puts the harsh spotlight on it for once. He let his stomach eat itself out so he can feel that deep ache in the pit of him and know it was his and his alone. He spills his blood onto the engine room's floor to showcase how truly cursed he was. He's always been meant for ruin, so he'll take his dear father along down with him.

He'll live day by day, carrying the weight of his victims' ghosts, to see Shido fall down to his knees. He'll live with this bone-deep weariness of his mother to see Shido pay for what he's done.

He’ll do it alone because he knows he can only truly rely on himself. There’s no other way for him. There’s no better way to trust someone than control them, he knows this.

Kitagawa says _warped thought, pitiful_ but Goro doesn't care anymore. He fights the thieves and _makes_ Akira tear him apart because he's meant for this: death, violence, and ruin.

 _You don't really hate Joker, do you?_ No, Morgana, you're wrong. See, Goro truly does hate some aspects of Akira. There’s a whole damn list; he hates his patience, his luck angers him like no other, and he loathes how he couldn't help but feel genuinely _happy_ during their rendezvous.

He drowns in Akira's presence because he was the first person to feel _real_ , first to feel like he actually gave a damn about Goro. Akira was the one he didn't want to get caught up in the mess that is Goro Akechi but still ended up putting a bullet in his head because Akira's first priority is _always_ justice. And he can’t even hold it against him because Goro _understands_.

If only they had met a few years earlier. If only they had. If only, if _only, if only—_

He screams into the dirty floors of Shido's mind. And when it leaves him empty, like suddenly all the rage and dreams that built him up collapsed and bled him white, he sees a puppet and it's strings.

He himself is so thin, ready to snap at any moment. The gun pointed at his head is just speeding up the process— quick and clean like how Shido likes it to be.

To be or not to be. Goro is always somebody's _someone_. A son, a hitman, a puppet.

Goro will always be Akira's rival, always fighting, always trying to win, always trying to stay ahead. They'll never know peace or a truce. Even with the acceptance of the other members, he knows there's nothing left out there for him. Nothing but jail, death, and Shido. He refuses to waste away, to lose to Akira once again. So he'll rival Akira with this:

He shoots the emergency button and his cognitive double. He closes the wall between him and the thieves. Then he stares down at what Shido truly saw him as and take aim. He'll admit to the worst parts of himself; he'll play the hero he always wanted to be.

He cuts the strings and the whole stage falls beneath him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CW: Emotional Manipulation, Suicidal Ideation, Past Suicide, Extreme Self Delusion, Death, Body Dysphoria, Shido, Disordered Eating, and Metaphorical Gore ******

Everyone finds a way to fix themselves when they break, repairing their broken bones, stitching their wounds closed. Let the wound bleed dry through their mouth when medicine or spells can't heal it. And in nature, when other certain breeds lose a limb, they'll regrow and _evolve,_ sprouting one or two extra tails in replacement. They learn the definition of _to adapt_ and _to change_ and the difference between them.

He wakes up on Christmas Eve, standing among Tokyo’s population in Shibuya’s crosswalk. He watches how people walk and chatter amongst themselves, not sparing him a glance. He finds Akira talking to Sae under the yellow-blue-red lights of the city and turns himself in to convict Shido of his crimes.

He is released a week later. And in that week, he learns to revise and reflect; there are no memories between the engine room and Christmas Eve, he is being let go seemingly without punishment, and Shido is still getting locked up like how he was always meant to be.

He already knows that this isn't right. The timeline got its string tangled somewhere, messing with the paces of Goro's life. You do not live, die, then live again; his corpse would be too busy rotting to remember how to move. It would already be home for someone else, decomposing his body until the atoms of Goro Akechi returned to where they're meant to be.

He searches for his answers in the abnormalities of the current time, walking to Leblanc and spotting people he saw in missing case files weeks, months, years ago. He hears of how everyone bears good news but never any bad.

He meets Akira again in Leblanc, standing near the entrance with dead company, strangers, and a missing cat.

The world unfolds and bears it’s truth out in the open. Two worlds are overlapping each other and their differences are stark. There are no mistakes to make, no morals to teach, no need to change. Dead people are walking and no one can find the rhythm of reality anymore, stepping on each other’s feet trying to follow and repeat movements that don’t fit anymore but not caring. They don’t notice the bruises on their feet. There are dreams and no nightmares on one end of the stick but truth and selfhood on the other.

Dream reality, fake reality, paradise. No matter what it is, Goro wants no part of it. He’ll tear this palace down to its bare essentials.

#####  **PART TWO**

* * *

It’s the ill-fated November and they’re suffocating under the vertigo of playing cat and mouse. They’re eating at the bar in the jazz club once again, listening to the soft and smooth singers while quietly conversing.

Before Akira had invited him out, Shido had called in the morning when his million messages (spammed while he was sleeping) weren't answered and questioned why their plans weren't moving yet. Goro had to spend thirty minutes in a half-asleep half-dissociative state pulling bullshit out of his ass to calm Shido down.

Afterward, he was already so worn out. Shido has always managed to do that. He doesn't know why he didn't just decline Akira. Maybe it's because Akira is always hard to track down for a simple meeting, or maybe it's because Sae's deadline is rearing its head. Or perhaps he really just missed the way jazz made him feel, searching for that empty bliss.

“Each of the Phantom Thieves has resentment for some sort of adult figure in their lives, don’t they?” Goro asks, knowing Akira’s already seeing where Goro is directing this conversation.

“You know, some people would consider it offensive to water it down to a _detail_ ,” Akira replies. He’s avoiding. It’s not uncommon to see whenever Goro asks anything about Akira but there’s a bleeding wound in Goro’s chest that chases after this particular curiosity.

Akira keeps talking before Goro can press further. “Some people had their future taken away from these sorts of people. We are simply giving it back. That is what the Phantom Thieves strive for. A detail won’t cover their determination to help people like them. It’s their resentment that keeps the same thing that happened to them from someone else.”

“So what about you?”

Akira gives into an unexpected laugh, “What _about_ me?”

“Where does your resentment stem?”

Goro honestly can't blame him if he refuses to answer. He’s digging in too deep, he knows this. He can’t help but keep shoveling through Akira’s derailments and avoidant tactics. He’s searching for something he doesn’t even know the name of in an empty abandoned cavern.

"Should it have to grow from somewhere? Is it not enough to see injustice to decide to fight against it?" Akira swallows and clears his throat. "Should justice run entirely on vengeance? C'mon _Ethics Professor_ , tell me what you think."

 _My vengeance is justice_ , Goro can't bite back the thought. Shido has ruined his life beyond repair. He destroyed his ecosystem, left his world burning itself aflame and starving. He poisoned the water and left the village to die, not right before committing unspeakable acts in the dark alleyways. Shido is Hell manifested into a man and birthed a boy named Chaos who was consumed in the hell flame of his nursery.

Even if he could dump his tragic birthright onto Akira wholly and with truth right here and now, he wouldn't. Goro doesn't know when hating Shido became so _tiring_.

When Goro waits too long to answer, Akira continues. "I know that if you let your rage consume you for so long, you'll just live in it forever. I don't want to live that way— always seeing the bad before the good. I want to be able to live outside my anger and know how to forgive."

"So you rather be apathetic to your own injustice?" Goro asks before he can even process what Akira has presented to him. "Is fighting for yourself selfish?"

"I never said that," Akira replies quickly, defensive. "I just don't want to live in it, like I'm eating only from it. Besides, my friends aren't selfish—"

"I apologize," Goro interrupts, "I never meant to imply they were.”

Akira ignores Goro's (not very sincere) apology. "—and anyway, what's with the questioning? I thought the Phantom Thieves' actions and vigilance were questionable and untrustworthy?"

Goro opens his mouth before realizing he doesn’t have an explanation. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, encouraging Akira to take a page in Goro’s book and let himself feel the injustice Akira was truly served. If anything, it’s the exact opposite of what he should be doing.

What the hell is he doing?

"I… I didn't mean to dig too deep. I'm sorry." Goro says it meaningful this time. "I was just rather curious. You act so- purposeful in the Metaverse. I thought there would've been a reason behind it. I didn't mean to assume."

Akira doesn’t really look at him, only tilting his head towards Goro while he’s hunched over the bar. The music doesn’t fit well under the tension— blurring into the surroundings and letting the silence between them take over.

Finally, Akira lets his eyes glaze over Goro’s face before saying, “It wasn't an assumption, was it?"

Akira had told him of how he came to Tokyo but not why, but neither of them is surprised that Goro knows about his record. Even without Goro’s access to the police database, Akira’s criminal record is well known at Shujin who Goro had investigated a while back and isn’t exactly a _secret_ within the group, per se. Maybe a forbidden topic at times but open no less. It was obviously a framed crime, you can tell by just a glance at the paperwork.

“You were committed for a crime you never did and forced to leave your hometown to a city that ostracized you.” With nails biting into his gloves, Goro asks with a leveled voice, “Aren’t you angry?”

“Of course I am.”

“Then why won’t you fight for yourself?” _Do your own feelings matter to you so little that it was your friends’ injustice that spurred you on?_

“Not letting resentment control me does not mean I don’t _feel_ it. It doesn't have to work like that."

 _You must be the fucking poster boy for self-control then, huh._ The thought it so bitter it's broken. What is _wrong_ with Goro today, chasing after these answers from Akira and then acting hurt when he gets them. "I…" He doesn't know what to say now, for once.

"Arsene, my original persona, was made from it, you know. That anger and injustice." Akira says. He's staring into the bar like he doesn't want to be associated with what he's revealing, or maybe associated with the act of revealing anything at all. "When we had started all of this, it was… I let myself run on it entirely. I _felt_ it consuming me and didn't care. But then I met Futaba and seen what she was going through. I saw what it did to her and realized I don't want to live like that. Feeding myself on my own misery.

"It's so easy to let it do that. To take over your life. If I hadn't stopped, continued to rely on my rage to fight, I think I would've been no different from the people we're fighting." Akira seems to let out a soundless sigh through his parted lips, the tension in his shoulder fading a bit. "I would've become ruthless and reckless. Would've blamed society for what I did. Hell, developed my own palace if I could and lose Arsene."

Akira leans back and watches how Goro doesn't move from his position of leaning against the bar's surface. Goro can tell he's staring at the bruise on Goro's temple where a shadow got a particularly good hit (and unlike Akira, Goro knows how to hide a bruise).

"And now I fight for my friends, not just myself anymore. And they do the same. We protect each other."

Their earnest belief in teammates and the _power of friendship_ make his stomach churn as if he's going to be sick all over the floor in a moment. And he isn't exactly sure of the meaning behind it. He wonders if their belief will help protect Akira from Goro's bullet to the head.

Goro's beginning to hate this never-ending November.

"This isn't fair, you know. You're always asking questions without answering any." Akira tries to lighten up. He then completely fails that intention when he opens his mouth again. "Where did Robin Hood come from?"

Goro is too tired for this. "I think we've hit our quota of soul searching for today." He tries to smile but it comes out broken. "I only ask because you aren't as open as the others. You keep to yourself and only talk when you're directly spoken to." Isshiki's daughter would've referred to him as an NPC at one point if it weren't for the clear pedestal she has him on. "It's only during these conversations am I able to drag more than one or two sentences out."

"You don't need to tell me everything, or anything really if you're not comfortable. And besides, it's good to keep some secrets."

Goro laughs because nothing has showcased Akira's inability to completely trust people than that sentence. Well, maybe he just doesn't trust Goro. He shouldn't.

Goro resists putting his head into his arms.

"You already know about my deadbeat father and actual dead mother. Shouldn't that be enough to paint a picture?"

He is only able to contain the worse of a flinch when Akira suddenly lays a hand against Goro's back. Akira hesitates for a moment before letting his hand stay.

"Ah, sorry… I sincerely didn't mean to pressure you into talking nor… get emotional." Goro says lamely, trying to scourge up any of his slaughtered pride.

 _You messed up_ , an unhelpful part of his brain supplies. _He's going to see you through, he hates you. He going to go home and ignore your existence, blackmail be damned. You messed up. He'll kill you himself. Fuck his morals, you'll be special, an exception. He should, he should, he should—_

"It's alright," Akira reassures but it has no effect. "There's never a thing such as perfect days."

The jazz music concludes, letting only the shuffling of the public be heard. So many thoughts go through his head— ones about Akira's rage and Shido's plan, some about Robin Hood and Arsene —that it becomes nonsensical static. Pressing his head into his arms, he knows the weight is becoming too much. Goro knows he'll regret letting himself be weak in front of Akira tomorrow. He doesn't care anymore, not now.

Akira doesn't remove his hand until they leave. His hand left an imprint on Goro's skin, a heat spreading through him and it won't leave. Goro doesn't know what they're doing anymore. The game is coming to a close but no excitement or adrenaline is kicking in.

Only this blank state and a burning ache in Goro's chest.

-

It's amazing how easy it was to ignore all the flaws of the house plan and the crumbling foundation when you're the one standing on it.

You see everything as one small problem after another. There's no kitchen, but you can always order takeout. The highway's buzz wakes you up at night, leaving you tired and drained no matter how long you sleep, but there's always sleeping pills. You'll see the low ceiling and congratulate yourself for being so tall, for being more than what the house could provide.

But you still find yourself living under its roof because there's no other house listing available and this is still better than sleeping in the streets. Because you've lost your standards about a hundred houses ago.

It's even more fascinating to finally step out of it and see that there were more problems than you could think was possible. To see how the walls of the house were one wind away from collapsing and the brown floor you thought you were standing on was just dirt after all. That the windows were smashed in and never noticed because you convinced yourself the broken fragments scattering the yard were pretty stones. That it wasn't even a house at all but a ghost of something you wanted and fooled yourself into believing it was there.

He had thought he needed Shido's controlling to gain his trust; that it was something necessary to bear. He had never trusted anyone and no one had ever really _truly_ trusted him. When he felt the phantom of Shido's hands around his neck or his eyes following him on every television screen, he thought that _this_ was the way to trust. The ever lingering presence of control.

Now, that Shido's long gone and away from Goro, he wonders how fucking stupid he must've been to let it pass by like that. To rationalize Shido's manipulation like that. Even someone like him should've known that it was wrong, that trusting someone shouldn't be like being locked in an oxygen-deprived zone and choking the other out so you can breathe a little longer.

He wishes he had the chance to learn trust like Akira and his friends, who breathe so freely and deeply. He wishes he wasn't built by rotting limbs and phantom connections of his past self. That he had all the time in the world to learn. He wishes his life's momentum didn't slow down and stop.

He can barely look at himself in the mirror anymore, or force food down his throat like he used to. He can't pretend to be alive anymore. His limbs must have been stitched together incorrectly, that's the only way to explain the dysphoria he feels.

He thinks could spend a lifetime trying to explain why he feels the need to claw his flesh open but never doing it. He could spend a lifetime trying to explain the inexplicable. A feeling that only exists in his body, the growing death inside him that tangles him immovable. There's a parasite in him, eating his corpse alive. You cannot interfere with nature's plan without expecting some retaliation.

He's Frankenstein's monster— a being that was never meant to _be_. There's no place for him in the real world anymore.

Tokyo greets him like he's just like everyone else but it all feels artificial. The madness of the real city can't be replicated, this is a poor copy of it. It's painful to think of how out of place he feels in a city he was born from but it's even more painful to think of why he could be here after death.

So he doesn't. He died, he never survived, he woke up without any bruises or wounds. There's nothing of him left to fix, despite all the wrongness and mistakes. There's no need to change here so he doesn't.

He doesn't even feel the need to bother with the persona of _Goro Akechi._ Frankly, he's so fucking tired of acting.

He always has been though, so nothing's changed. Fake Tokyo continues to try to replicate it's madness, tearing itself into two, eating itself. It'll collapse one day when there's nothing left of itself, Goro knows. Old stories always have the same ending.

-

The arcade was a risky place. They always had enough relevance to keep business with the youth, always packed with excitable kids, media-obsessed teenagers, and chatty adults. But, there's always a risk of being recognized anywhere.

He had never been an arcade actually. He didn't see a reason to lie about that. His mother was always too busy or too tired or too poor to take him. Foster homes and orphanages didn't take entertainment as a first priority.

(And he didn't go nowadays even though he had the money and time because, to be honest, it seemed really fucking _pathetic_ to go alone.)

Plus, he wanted to see Kurusu's expression when a beginner absolutely destroyed him on his first try at a gun game.

"Beginner's luck," Goro says, not having to completely fake his smile. "I used to play with a toy gun when I was a kid."

He doesn't mention the fact his mother bought it for him right before she died. That she had been so happy to present it to him and told him not to worry about the cost of it. That she even stayed home with him all day even though she had work and her phone kept going off. And it broke some years later because one of the older orphans got jealous and smashed it into pieces because he didn't have anything of his own. He doesn't mention it because, well, it wasn't any of Kurusu's fucking business.

 _What makes a hero is his ability to stick to his justice_. Honestly, Goro shouldn't have been surprised at Kurusu's logic. The Phantom Thieves were his exact definition of heroes then, thinking that they could never be the villains because of their _sense of justice_. They'll say that then scorn at him and his justice, say he was never a hero but a crazy boy chasing after something impossible. Hypocrites.

On their way back to the station, it begins to pour out of nowhere because it's _September_ and Japan has it out for him. They're stuck under a cover in front of a cafe (closed because that's just their luck). The humidity is sticking to his throat, making it hard to swallow or breathe. Kurusu, on the other hand, stands under the rain and has his head tilted towards the sky.

"Um, Kurusu-kun, what are you doing?" Goro asks, politely when he wants to yell _are you trying to torture yourself_ in his face. His outfit is already soaked, the white open button-up is sticking to his skin, transparent.

Kurusu doesn't move. "Don't you sometimes have a really strong urge to do something that you shouldn't do?"

God, if only he knew who he was talking to. "Yes, but that doesn't really explain what you're doing."

With Kurusu staring up at the sky, arms stretched out wide like if he was trying to cover his entire body in the rain, Goro wonders if Kurusu could have the same realization he did. How the cities' condition can change its appearance so drastically but will always be some road in Japan at the end of the day.

Maybe Kurusu can't. Kurusu probably wouldn't understand a goddamn thing.

"Oh, I just felt the urge to stand here like this."

Since Kurusu can't see him (or anything for the matter, cause his glasses are also fucking wet), Goro rolls his eyes. He takes Kurusu's outstretched hand and pulls him back under the cover. "Sorry, but I rather not have you catch a cold."

Kurusu looks at him, or tries to at least. He looks down at his wet clothes, before realizing there's no rag around to wipe them down with. Resigned, Kurusu pathetically does a window wiper motion on his glasses while they're still perched on his nose.

Goro tries not to sigh out loud. "Excuse me," Goro says as a formality as he pushes Kurusu's hands away to take his glasses off. He untucks a section of his button-up and tries to wipe the lenses down with his undershirt.

Goro wonders how the leader of the Phantom Thieves could act like such a child sometimes. It's amazing how far they've made it even with Shido's interference. Enough to ruin Goro's own reputation. He places them back on Kurusu's face and tucks in his shirt again. "Sorry, it looked like you needed some help."

"They're fake lenses," Kurusu says suddenly.

"Huh?"

Kurusu taps his frames. "They're fake lenses. I can see without them."

"Is that for any particular reason…?"

Kurusu parts his lips for a moment as if to say something, then presses them close. Suddenly, he slides behind Goro, ducking his head down.

"Hey," A gruff voice says, catching Goro's attention. A man in a police uniform walks towards them. "Got caught up in the rain too?"

Goro straightens his back and steps back and to the side more, allowing Akira to hide behind him. "Haha, hasn't everyone? I hadn't heard anything about a rain shower on the news this morning. How about you?"

The officer shakes his head, bringing a hand up to cover his eyes. "Should've expected something though. It _is_ September." He sighs, "Well, make sure you and your friend make it home safe, it's nearly evening. Stay dry."

When the officer walks away and out of sight, Akira moves from behind Goro. He doesn't have a particular distressed expression but not the carefree one he had earlier either.

"Are you alright?" Goro asks.

"Oh, yeah. Just didn't feel like talking to some random old man." Akira shakes his head lightly, droplets flying off. "Could never really hold small talk with anyone."

It's during these times that Goro truly wonders if Kurusu actually believes in his bumbling Detective Prince act. Probably thinks he's nothing more than an idiot kid playing adult.

"Ah, understandable. I only know how to because that's basically what most newscasters or reporters do. It's a little exhausting at times." Goro looks at his phone. Shido had sent him a message. "It seems he was right about it becoming late. Best to head to the station now."

Kurusu nods. "Come by Leblanc sometime, the stool has been feeling lonely recently."

Goro represses the urge to tell Kurusu that he had to stop himself from visiting Leblanc every day this past week and laughs instead. "Let's head out. The rain is getting lighter."

-

"Yǒu yuán wú fèn." Shido had said once right before Goro had left for another shutdown assignment, like it was an inside joke. It's an old Chinese proverb, _have fate without destiny._ It's like something you'll say during a breakup. Said it to feel superior or some shit, to reassure himself that he had a good hand of cards. Shido used to have these talks of fate, of God, and how he was chosen to rule over Japan. He also said them while spilling his alcohol onto Goro's newly cleaned pants because he forgot how wide his reach was.

He used to think that's how he and Akira were— fate without destiny. He still truly thinks he and Akira were fated to meet, no matter what timeline or world. In all his past lives, Akira would be as consistent as gravity. Always existing, always pushing against him, enwrapping Goro into his existence like a cradle, like falling off a building.

There's no denying Akira Kurusu. Goro wonders why he even tried to, sometimes. Wonders why he tried to live in zero-gravity and float among the void when he was sure to die without the comforting pressure of his homeland.

Goro doesn't know if he could live with Akira or the group truthfully. He doesn't think he could survive because he'll break his back bending over backward for him, always listening to jazz music and chasing for that empty temporary bliss of praise and companionship. He would always question Akira's feelings, his own; always be looking over his shoulder to see if they actually wanted him around or were just humoring him.

It's ironic, how his praise-starved self outlived his actual self. Maybe they weren't separated at all, possibly it's another phantom connection to his dead self. Maybe he would always stay the same, never changing.

-

He ends up visiting Kurusu a few days after the visit to the arcade. Because he's weak and always wanting more. He goes to the bathhouse because he remembers how Kurusu's clothes stuck to his body and how the humid weather had made him feel like he couldn't swallow.

He didn't mean to tell Kurusu that much of his home life. He didn't want pity. But Kurusu made it so easy to talk, to talk about his absent father, to talk about his mother and the red-light district. It was so easy to admit to Kurusu that he never blamed her for killing herself.

 _You've lived a hard life._ Goro can't help but drown in Kurusu's presence for a moment. He wishes that he didn't feel this way. It would be so much easier to hate Kurusu. He wants to hate how he can feel Kurusu's eyes on him, like how he does for Shido. He wishes that Kurusu's way of waiting and expecting for Goro to cut his chest open wasn't working. He wishes he didn't want to grab ahold of Kurusu and hold him down because Kurusu disappears far too often for Goro's liking. He wishes Kurusu didn't bother wearing that cheap makeup around him, to let him see where it hurts.

He wishes that November wasn't coming up so soon, that Shido would change his mind from the ridiculous plan he thought up. He wishes he could wake up tomorrow and Shido would be gone, or to never wake up again.

When they exit the warm bath and Kurusu dizzyingly stumbles home, the cold and reality sets back into his bones. There's no miracle waiting for him when he wakes up tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. There's no joie de vivre in his and Kurusu's fate.

In his apartment, feeling the plasticity of his furniture and the emptiness pressing against him from all sides, he decides he won't let himself be torn down by his own selfishness. He'll stick to his justice, not for the heroism but for survival. And for his survival, he'll twist all those desires inside of him and hate Kurusu with all his being too.

 _"Yǒu yuán wú fèn,"_ Shido had said while leaning back in his chair _. "They were never meant to stay forever, Akechi_. _Everyone runs out of their usefulness and compliance._

_"They made their choice, it's time we make ours."_

-

Takamaki takes him to a crepe stand during one of the days Akira (for some ungodly reason) thinks they shouldn't be clearing the palace. He buys her one of the more expensive plates because there's nothing left to spend it on anymore. He never bought much for himself before, outside for publicity’s sake. He kept thinking there will be a magical number in his bank account that'll tell him everything's safe now.

(There wasn't. Or rather, it was never meant for Goro perhaps.)

She makes them sit in the sun. "You know," Takamaki breaks the silence, still chewing on her food, "I never did believe in the Detective Prince act."

Goro only holds his crepe without making any gesture to eat. "What gave me away?"

"Um, nothing really. You could work on your acting a bit more but that wasn't it." Takamaki fiddles with one of her pigtails' ends. "In the show business, you learn to adapt. Everyone has a more… _profitable_ self. Something that companies can sell. Always thought that it was that case for you."

That piques Goro's interest. "Oh? I forget you know what the media's like. Sorry, you just don't act like how most- _influencers_ do."

Takamaki laughs. "No no, it's alright. I try not to be. It's tiring to just act like that for an interview or job. Can't imagine having to do it all the time."

"...Are you trying to allude to something more, Takamaki?"

She winces. "Not consciously… but you know- you can always talk to me. I mean I know we aren't very close—" They really aren't. Goro can count on one hand the number of times they've talked alone like this. "—but everyone could use an ear to talk to. I know I'm supposed to feel angry and whatnot for you betraying us but I don't want that."

 _I don't want to live like that— living in it, like I'm eating from it._ Goro wonders if the thieves know how much they reflect each other, how much they've plagiarized off each other's morals. Maybe this is Takamaki's originality— comforting a betraying murderer. He hopes it is.

"You should be angry." He ignores Takamaki's squawk of disapproval. "You and your friends; I've killed people, Takamaki. I've made Isshiki's daughter an orphan and killed Okumura's father."

Takamaki's anger has a short fuse but a long life, Goro discovers. She also has a poor aim, leaving it all misdirected. "That was Shido! Shido made you do that! You were only fifteen right?! You were just a kid! He knew that. He tried to _kill_ you Akechi."

Goro thinks Takamaki lives too idealistic. He came to Shido despite all the risks. He made his choice. He is to blame as much as Shido is. "That doesn't change what I did."

"I'm not saying you're blameless." Takamaki clenches her hand around her empty napkin on the table. Then she releases. "But you _need_ to realize he manipulated you, that you are capable of change. That you're capable of doing better, of doing good. That's why you turned yourself in right? On Christmas Eve?"

"...Why are you doing this? There's no point in all of this."

"There is! There's a life for you outside of Shido, outside this fake reality, Akechi-kun. He doesn't control you anymore. It's important you _know_ that."

 _A life outside of Shido._ Goro wishes that that was true. In the heat of guilt and arguing, he somehow foolishly forgotten Takamaki doesn't know the truth.

If Goro focuses, he can feel the bullet hole in his chest. He can feel the stickiness of his blood and the way it's clotting and filling his lungs. He can hear the low wheeze in his breath with every inhale. He wonders if he could reach into that wound and dig into each corner searching for his heart, or the working one it had been replaced with.

And once he reaches it, he wonders what would happen if he pulled it out. Would he still live because of Maruki's distortion are still in play? If he did, and he stabbed the beating fake-heart to make it still, would he still live? Or would the wound close with his heart inside before he could and his hands are miraculously clean as if he never dug in the first place?

Would Maruki take away his desire to die? Would Maruki go against his own desire and change Goro to sedate his own moral conflicts? How far is Maruki willing to go, to create his eternal paradise.

"Just know, I'm always here to help if you need it. You don't need to keep everything to yourself. Not anymore." She leans toward him. "Me, and the others I'm sure, are here."

He recognizes that glint in Takamaki's eye. The built-up guilt and vulnerability. She could be doing this for herself, to solve some trauma from her past. Or she could actually mean what she preaches. Or both.

He remembers the Kamoshida case and the girl who jumped. He thinks of Takamaki's wish. He hands Takamaki his crepe. "I actually don't like sweet treats."

She takes the crepe smiling. In the murmur of shops and Takamaki's chatter, a victory chant plays a moment too early.

##### A LESSON ON HOW TO BE A DEAD CELEBRITY

* * *

_You learn to adapt_. Goro was always trying to sell some part of himself, letting people take their share, and changing himself for them. Changed himself so drastically at times that he wondered how much longer before it was considered some kind of murder. Change does not mean adapt.

Akira adapts. He switches through so many faces and masks in the Metaverse. He talks to Shadows with a certain charm, always managing to adapt to their personality. Akira doesn't make himself likable, he makes himself useful. He doesn't chase after praise like Goro, who needs it like oxygen.

Akira knows how to adapt, switching faces as if he'll never run out. Like he can be anything. Goro can only be the two halves he had split himself to be. If he had known how to adapt, he wouldn't be needing to make up for his own actions. He would be more than these broken halves.

 _You learn to adapt_. Goro had wasted so much time living in his thoughts. Replaying the past like it'll explain something about himself that he doesn't already know. He relives drowning in his own blood on Shido's ship, dying over and over again.

He keeps torturing himself in past feelings. He wakes up missing the craving for justice he had for Shido, even if it tore him from the inside out. And on the worst days, he wakes up _missing_ Shido because he feels like he breathes too freely, too openly.

He keeps wanting someone to take him again, claw the worst of him out. Make a fury out of him— fill him again with that burning purpose he had before.

His thirst for justice and rage is always there. Do not mistake that it left. But there's no one to direct it towards anymore. Maruki doesn't feel _personal_ enough. He's aimless and floating in his own vortex of self-destruction and rage.

 _You learn to adapt_. To survive the harsh reality of nature, breeds would regrow lost limbs and _evolve._ They sprout one or two extra tails in replacement of their former. They learn the difference between _to adapt_ and _to change_. They learn that adapting doesn't always have to be for someone else. You learn how to adapt to survive after you've died too many times.

Goro has done his time grieving the life he knew. He's spent his time stitching his flesh together to last a little longer. He's died more times than they know, dead longer than they know. He won't change himself for someone else anymore, he won't die by his own hands again. He won't live in his old emotions, feeding off his misery and hidden desires any longer.

Goro learns _to adapt_ like this:

He'll see Akira walking near him and in a brief hesitation, he'll consider bringing him to the jazz club or the attic of Cafe Leblanc and act like how this reality wants them to. To take him and learn the softer areas of Akira he was too busy trying to claw. To learn Akira's freedom and trust and see how deep the cut that trust can make inside Goro and watch it heal into a scar. But then he remembers there's a higher power granting him this privilege for the price of his set destiny, just like how he paid Shido for every bite of his meal. No matter the wishes or dreams coming true, that'll be no different from what Shido has been doing to him all these years. He'll just be another puppet, following someone who thinks he knows what's better for Goro.

In how a lizard's tail can be cut off and regrow twice over, Goro cuts off his own desire. He watches Akira walk near him, resists the teaching of his younger peers to always take what you want before what you need, and he walks the other way.

-

He'll hate himself for this confession, just like he always hated himself for wanting the impossible, but despite it all, he still finds hope in the deep part of his heart. Hope that at the end of the day, he'll wake up in Leblanc as if he belonged there. That he could feel Akira's hands and find that his hands are warm as well. That they'll find their joie de vivre at home. That they are another one of Shido's failed prophecies. To be wrong about the thieves again. And again, and again, and again—

Maruki leaves Leblanc, carrying his calling card and leaves something behind in return.

Goro doesn’t care for whatever bullshit Maruki had sprouted beforehand— about how he wants everyone to be _happy_ and that he didn’t want to seem like he’s holding Goro hostage. That he had _seen_ Akira's guilt and wanted to help him. Goro knows this game.

Goro had known he was dead since he was fifteen years old and walking up to Shido's desk saying _I have a proposition for you._ He made his fucking choice, to die in Shido's palace and drown in his ocean along with the rest of the people he used and then discarded. How _dare_ Maruki use Akira like this, try and convince him it’s for his benefit, for his happiness, _their_ happiness.

And Akira had the audacity to _consider_ Maruki's proposal. To sell his selfhood and freedom, to surrender just like that. To compromise everyone's freedom over such a _little_ thing—

"It's not a little thing," Akira says with conviction.

Akira just might be the stupidest person Goro knows. Did Akira say that because he thought it'll make Goro happy? He doesn't want his worthless pity. There's a burning wound in his chest. He doesn't need Akira's sudden compliance; he needs that annoying self-righteous vigilante. Akira's compromise of his justice for his desire is a betrayal to Goro. He tells him that.

"Answer me."

Goro feels a fear creep into his heart when Akira doesn't answer right away. But then, Akira looks him in the eye. "I'll fight Maruki."

Goro's tired of being manipulated. He doesn't want to be another billiard game, feeling out of control and causing collisions left and right, never knowing whose blood he's covered in.

Staring at Akira as he wore the look of determination and grief, he felt a sudden emptiness in him. Loki and Robin Hood quieten, their presence disappeared. For the first time in three years, it's Goro Akechi and him alone. Until there was a sudden _completion_ , of two halves becoming whole.

Hereward stitches him together again, the two roles of a throwaway child colliding into one— justice and chaos.

He'll be the control Goro needs, the person who'll drive his rage: His one true self.

-

An hour or earlier, Akira had grabbed his sleeve and tugged him upstairs. They didn't mention the late hour or how Goro might miss the last train back home. Morgana had not said anything, not even a smartass comment, and climbed downstairs.

Goro had considered making the smartass comment Morgana didn't take, call him a cat and really rally him up. But the weight of Leblanc and the night catches up to him. He doesn't want to break it just yet.

Akira doesn't get the memo. He flops on his futon hard enough that Goro's afraid he broke one of the crates holding it up. With little (comfortable) options available, Goro sits on the couch.

Akira covers his face with his hands for a moment; then he slides them into his hair, baring his face free from hair and glasses.

"Are we not going to talk about it?"

 _No,_ Goro thinks, _because you're fucking crazy. I killed you, I shot you point-blank. And you still want me. What the fuck is wrong with you—_

"Try saying what you want to say out loud this time, Goro," Akira says, exasperated.

"I don't understand you."

Akira lets out a sigh. He moves his hands further back until they're pillowed beneath his head. "I used to have nightmares about you."

Goro bites down a (probably hysterical) laugh. "Of course you would."

"Not like that." Goro doesn't say anything, only stares at how Akira's chest moves up and down. "You had said that I was your antithesis. That we both were oppressed by adults.

"I kept thinking- if you kept trying to tell me something. Kept asking me for something and I didn't realize in time. That it was my fault that Shido—"

"I didn't ask you to save me." Goro interrupts sharply. "I wasn't crawling to you, hoping for you to play hero."

"I know that. But you kept pushing me away and then pulling me back in. Kept giving more pieces of you and then taking them back. I thought we could've been something if we could." He breathes in deeply. "You tried to warn me. You didn't want to kill me, did you."

It's a statement. "It still doesn't change that I still did it."

"You stayed away from me, this past month. You knew that you were…"

Goro swallows thickly like he's about to be sick. "I didn't want to hurt you any further."

Akira sits up in a rush of emotion that his feet make a harsh sound when they collide into the support crates. "You don't get to _decide_ for me!"

Goro has never seen Akira angry. He's seen him when he was brimming at the edges of ruthlessness but never anger. Never distressed.

"I did it for me too."

Akira clenches the loose fabric of his jeans. Months of grief is pouring out, Akira chokes on his words. "I blame myself for not helping you sooner. Not seeing you through earlier. Not doing _enough_ for you."

"I never asked anything from you. I didn't want help. I felt like… I needed to do it all alone. That this was something I was only meant for."

"Sometimes you know," Akira bitterly laughs, "during the times when you would push me away, I thought I wanted you more than you wanted me. Or wanted you differently."

Akira's wish was Goro; not even the Detective Prince, just Goro in his all. Akira's offering all he ever wanted before: a place to belong, acceptance, the chance of having something unconditional.

 _I tried cutting off my desire like it'll adapt into self-control_ , Goro wants to say, _but it only grew trice over_. He tried to fool himself into thinking he learned something from all of this. He still couldn't learn how to stop wanting.

This is a burning home and neither of them is running out of it. Their unsolved crimes to each other are catching up to them in the suffocating smoke. They're sitting in the living room with the heat and ash and pretending this could be something salvageable.

They could've been something. Maybe if they had met as anything other than a murderer and his victim. Maybe before Shido, before the Metaverse, before these puppeteer gods.

There's something so finale in saying, "I don't think that's possible."

He wishes he didn't see Akira's wide-eyed realization or his face softening into something somber, mournful for a man breathing in front of him like Goro had done in November. If he hadn't seen, maybe it wouldn't hurt as much as it did. Maybe he was always meant for this hurt.

.

They had found Maruki hanging off of Joker's grip. They somehow were able to maneuver everyone into a more comfortable, but tight, sitting without anyone on the floor this time. The younger Niijima had crowded Joker immediately, scourging up the last of her magic for a weak heal.

At the peak of the chaos and the collapsing reality, everyone freezes when they hear sniffling. They start to panic when they realize it's Akira crying.

Goro had always thought Akira was always hiding, burying himself farther and farther into a place of secrets and myths. Even last night, when he opened his box and showed his stash of disaster. He saw this as nothing but Akira making a one-way mirror, reflecting Goro's desires and familiarity right back at him.

It was never that. Goro sees now how no one knows what to do with their leader crying and bleeding on himself. Bruised with no makeup to cover it and Goro _sees_ now that Akira’s just as lost in himself as Goro.

With one eye closed and blood running down his split lip and bloody nose as his body slowly registers its abuse, Akira says, "There are no exceptions."

Goro does not dare make a comment, does not dare breathe again. His heart begins to slow down, breaking it's set pace. The final beats crawl into his throat, the stitches holding him together are becoming undone. In the final moment, before Morgana breaks into their reality again, he grabs Akira’s hand, hoping the ghost of his last warmth will linger on Akira's skin when he wakes. Always hoping for the impossible.

##### A DREAM

* * *

The morning of February 3rd felt like preparing to visit a morgue; stuffing the empty dead parts of himself with cotton, applying color to his pale skin, sitting in the cold so he could rot a little slower. The night of February 2nd had felt like it's antithesis.

Akira is still lying on his bed, spread across it. If he had felt Goro's focus on his skin, felt him desperately trying to remember Akira's body and presence, he had said nothing. Akira didn't change out of his clothes, as if the thought of sleeping alone was some kind of surrender.

He spread his arm towards Goro, left his hand up and waiting, always expecting. There's no denying Akira Kurusu, Goro knows. He takes it and lets himself curl up on the cheap futon.

The cheap material blanket is not the source of the warmth covering Goro. Leblanc's comfort and quietness does not carve its existence into Goro. It sets itself up in the gaping hole in his chest, an abandoned cavern that Goro had tried for years to fill and failed to.

Goro can pretend to know himself as much as he wants to. Pretend he can deny the nature of his want. But at the end of the day, he'll always come back to this: A boy defined by the company he keeps, by the ghosts that haunt him, by his undeniable hope. Boys like him don't get their happy ending; not even a happy middle.

He knew him and Akira were never going to know true peace. He wonders if Akira knew that, or he also held onto that last bit of hope that they’ll overcome their fate. Out of all the somebodys Goro had to be, he thinks he didn’t mind being Akira’s _someone_ the most.

Perhaps he’ll stay up, this one last night, and memorize Leblanc’s warmth and Akira’s face a bit longer. Try and not to focus on the past and regret not being able to pick up the broken pieces of his and Akira’s relationship. Regret not spending that time with him, fixing what shouldn’t have been broken at all.

"Go to sleep, Goro," Akira says softly, eyes closed and breathing slowly. He says it like a plead to dream one last time, to have one last want. The moonlight plays with the shadows of Akira, drawing his eyelashes out and softening his face. The light spreads across Akira’s hand from pinky to thumb, making it feel closer than it is. This burning desire will always be apart of Goro; chasing after him in every life, in every fated meeting with Akira.

Goro does what he is told. He closes his eyes and mimics Akira's slow breaths and beating heart until the whole world goes into a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will turn myself into a gun, because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this bullet inside me like the bullet was already there, like it’s been waiting inside me the whole time.
> 
> \- Wishbone, Richard Siken


End file.
